1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an automatic call distributor and, more particularly, to an automatic call distributor with a display terminal and means and methods for controlling the display terminal for simultaneous display of a plurality of different types of information concerning the distributor.
Description of the related art including information disclosed under 37 CFR 1.97-1.99
Automatic call distributors employing a multiport switch controlled by a central processing unit for interconnecting external telephonic units of an external telephonic network with internal telephonic units used in the implementation of telemarketing are well known. Examples of such automatic call distributor systems are shown in patent applications U.S. Ser. No. 07/770,197 of Jones et al. entitled "Multichannel Telephonic Switching Network With Different Signaling Formats and Connect/PBX Treatment Selectable For Each Channel", filed Oct. 2, 1991, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,268,903, issued Dec. 7, 1993; U.S. Pat. No. 5,140,611 of Jones et al. entitled "Pulse Modulated Self-Clocking and Self-Synchronizing Data Transmission and Method for a Telephonic Communication Switching System", issued Aug. 18, 1992 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,127,004 of Lenihan et al. entitled "Tone and Announcement Message Code Generator for a Telephonic Switching System and Method" issued Jun. 30, 1992.
It is also known in such automatic call distributors to employ a data display terminal having a data display for providing visual information to management and supervisory personnel concerning different aspects of activity within the automatic call distributor. This visual information includes the performance status of telemarketing agents located at the internal telephonic units of the call distributor. The agents service calls from customers calling from external telephonic units of an external telephonic network. A user or supervisor stationed at a data display terminal monitors the progress of the agents servicing the incoming calls and the status of certain telephonic trunks within the call distributor. By monitoring the call distributor, a supervisor at a data display terminal is better able to determine which agents are receiving certain types of customer calls, which agents are idle for long periods of time and which agents are unavailable to receive customer calls. This allows the supervisor to understand the call activity within the call distributor and to make the necessary changes (such as assigning a particular agent to service different types of calls) for a more efficient telemarketing operation.
In the known systems, the display screens at the data display terminal is divided into separate areas or windows for display of different types of information. For example, one window is used to display agent status; another window is used to display information concerning commands entered by the user at the data display terminal, and another window displays the actual command inserted at the terminal. These designated areas, or windows, are assigned various sizes for display of information on the screen. The supervisor, or other user, through means of the keyboard at the data display terminal activates a particular window for full display of the particular window in the forefront of the display screen. This activated, or active, window, depending upon size, entirely or partially overlaps the other nonactive windows which appear to be in the background of the screen. Information displayed in the background for the inactive windows that are only partially overlapped by the active window are readable to the user at the display terminal. Simultaneous visual access to the information in the nonactive windows is useful towards maintaining the efficiency of the automatic call distributor.
Disadvantageously, in these known systems the user of the data display terminal cannot control which nonactive windows partially or entirely overlap other nonactive windows. Many times a supervisor must activate a particular window, but also needs to receive information displayed in the background of another window. In the known data display systems, the user or supervisor has no control over which nonactive windows overlap or are displayed over the other nonactive windows. Accordingly, the user in many situations is unable to receive certain information from a particular nonactive window while certain other windows are activated. These circumstances force the users to change from one active window to another in order to obtain the desired information sequentially, instead of obtaining it simultaneously, with resultant increased risk of erroneous readings and inefficiency.